The effect of feeding frequency, water temperature, and stocking density on the growth of river puffer Takifugu obscurus reared in a zero-exchange water system

The effects of daily feeding frequency (Exp I), water temperature (Exp II), and stocking density (Exp III) on the growth of river puffer, Takifugu obscurus, juvenile fish of 10 and 40 g in body weight were examined to develop effective techniques to produce river puffer in a non-exchange water system. In Exp I, fish were fed commercial floating feed with 45 % protein one to five times per day to apparent satiation each by hand daily for 8 weeks at $25^{\circ}C$. In both the 10- and 40-g size groups, the final body weight, daily feed consumption, and weight gain of fish fed one meal per day were significantly lower than those of fish fed five meals per day (P < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the final body weight, daily feed consumption, and weight gain among fish fed two, three, and five meals per day. Feed efficiency showed decreasing tendency with increasing size of fish. In Exp II, fish of 10 and 40 g in initial body weight were reared with the commercial feed at $15-30^{\circ}C$ for 8 weeks. The weight gain of fish increased with raising water temperature up to $25^{\circ}C$ and decreased drastically at $30^{\circ}C$ for both sizes. The Q10 of specific growth rate was decreased with raising water temperature from 5.04 (temperature interval, $15-20^{\circ}C$) to 0.66 ($25-30^{\circ}C$) for the 10-g fish and from 4.98 to 0.31 for the 40-g fish. In Exp III, the effect of stocking density on growth was examined with fish of 10 and 40 g in initial body weight. The final body weight for initial stocking densities of 4, 8, and $12kg/m^3$ was significantly higher than that of $20kg/m^3$ for the 10-g fish, and the final stocking density reached 10.1, 19.2, 28.7, and $39.9kg/m^3$, respectively. For the 40-g fish, the final body weight for initial stocking densities of 3 and $6kg/m^3$ was significantly higher than that of 9 and $15kg/m^3$ and the final stocking density reached 7.38, 13.5, 17.1, and $27.5kg/m^3$, respectively (P < 0.05). In both groups, weight gain tended to decrease with increasing stocking density; however, survival showed no significant difference.